Semiconductor components, such as bare dice, chip scale packages, BGA devices and wafers can include terminal contacts in the form of bumped contacts. This type of component is sometimes referred to as a "bumped" component (e.g., bumped die, bumped wafer). The bumped contacts provide a high input/output capability for a component, and permit the component to be surface mounted, or alternately flip chip mounted, to a mating substrate, such as a printed circuit board (PCB). Typically, the bumped contacts comprise solder bumps or balls, which permit the components to be bonded to the mating substrate using a solder reflow process. For some components, such as chip scale packages and BGA devices, the bumped contacts can be arranged in a dense array, such as a ball grid array (BGA), or a fine ball grid array (FBGA).
Rather than bumped contacts, semiconductor components can also include terminal contacts in the form of pin contacts, or spring contacts. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,496,667 to Farnworth et al. discloses pin contacts, and spring contacts, on unpackaged semiconductor dice.
For performing test procedures on semiconductor components temporary electrical connections must be made with the terminal contacts. Different types of interconnects have been developed for making these temporary electrical connections. For example, a wafer probe card is one type of interconnect that is used to test semiconductor wafers. Another type of interconnect, is contained within a carrier for temporarily packaging singulated components, such as bare dice and chip scale packages, for test and burn-in. In either case, the interconnects include interconnect contacts that make the temporary electrical connections with the terminal contacts on the components.
One problem with making these temporary electrical connections is that variations can occur in the planarity, size, and location of the terminal contacts on the components. For example, the planarity of bumped contacts can vary due to variations in height and diameter of the bumps. Similarly, pin contacts or spring contacts can have different heights and diameters. These variations can occur between the terminal contacts on the same component, and between the terminal contacts on different components. It is advantageous for an interconnect to be able to accommodate these variations, particularly variations in the height and planarity of the terminal contacts. This problem is compounded because the interconnect contacts must penetrate native oxide layers on the terminal contacts to make low resistance electrical connections.
The present invention is directed to an interconnect for making temporary electrical connections with semiconductor components having terminal contacts in the form of bumps, pins or springs.